Before we turn to our passage in Daniel 9 tonight, we'd like to consider what our Heidelberg Catechism has to say in connection with our passage from God's Word. If you would, please turn with me in the back of your blue psalters to page 57. We'd like to consider just briefly tonight Heidelberg's reflection on Scripture as it has to do with the matter of prayer. From Lord's Day 45, we find four questions and answers here, both on page 57 and 58, dealing with the questions of why should we pray, or why do we need to pray, how does God want us to pray, and then what does God command us to pray for as believers. I will read the question, if you would please respond, with the answer tonight. Page 57, Lord's Day 45, question 116. Why do Christians need to pray? Because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And also because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, Asking God for these gifts and thanking Him for them. How does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? First, we must pray from the heart to no other than the one true God who has revealed Himself in His Word, asking for everything He has commanded us to ask for. Second, we must acknowledge our need and misery, hiding nothing, and humble ourselves in his majestic presence. Third, we must rest on this unshakable foundation. Even though we do not deserve it, God will surely listen to our prayer because of Christ our Lord. That is what he promised us in his word. What did God command us to pray for? Everything we need, spiritually and physically, as embraced in the prayer, Christ our Lord himself taught us. And finally, what is this prayer? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our trespasses. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. We come to that blessed time now as God speaks to us from His Word. We'd like tonight to consider Daniel's prayer from Daniel chapter 9. If you turn in your Bibles with me and follow along, in your pew Bibles, Daniel 9 is found on page 947. Daniel 9. We'd like to consider together the first 19 verses tonight. This is God's holy, infallible, inspired, and inerrant word that He has given to us for our growth and our knowledge of Him. Daniel 9, verse 1. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, by descent Amid, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the numbers of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us, open shame. As at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame to our kings, to our princes and to our fathers because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in His laws, which He set before us by His servants, the prophets. All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned aside, refusing to obey Your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore, the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us. For the Lord our God is righteous in all the works he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself as at this day we have sinned. We have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all Your righteous acts, let Your anger, let Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy hill, because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now, therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his pleas for mercy. And for Your own sake, O Lord, make Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary which is desolate. O my God, incline Your ear and hear. Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by Your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. This is God's Word for us. Well, brothers and sisters in the Lord, as we look at question and answer 117, we stumble across a question that perhaps we don't consider strongly enough as believers. The question comes to us, how does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? We tend to ask a different question. We tend to ask the question and answer 116, why should we pray after all? Why is it necessary that we as Christians pray? In fact, prayer is not one of the easiest things for us to do. In one of his letters to a friend, C.S. Lewis, admitted to him, he says to his friend, let's just come clean for a moment. We're both sinful individuals and sometimes prayer is an irksome thing. It can be somewhat annoying. We are much better at finishing the prayer and going on with our day. We're much more reluctant to begin prayer. When we're praying, but not when we're watching a film or reading a good novel or doing a crossword puzzle, when we pray, that's when any trivial matter seems to distract us. Even C.S. Lewis could admit that, that sometimes prayer is not the easiest. So that's normally the question that we ask. Why should we pray? Because it isn't always the easiest task for us, even as Christians. And the Catechism, of course, gives us a beautiful answer based on the testimony of Scripture that we need to pray, it's a necessity for us because it's the most important part of the thankfulness that God requires of us as Christians. We pray willingly, we also pray obediently. God commands us to pray. And we pray knowing that God by His Spirit nourishes us by His grace. So, we've often dealt with the question of why should we pray, But what we want to particularly notice today or the question we want to particularly discuss together or think about together is, well, how should we do that? How should we pray so that God will listen to us, so that God will be pleased when we come before his presence in prayer? We tend to think that any prayer whatsoever is completely acceptable in the sight of God and is far better than no prayer at all, at least. Has God really prescribed for us as believers how we should pray? That's what we want to consider together as we look at the prayer of God's servant, Daniel. As we do, we'll notice that indeed throughout Scripture we have been given models. We have been given patterns for how we are to approach God in prayer. And we see this kind of model or appropriate pattern of the elements of effective prayer before God in the prayer of God's servant Daniel. Daniel's prayer and our prayer as well as believers, first of all, should be grounded in the promises of God. Second of all, they are to be offered in a tone of repentance. and humility. Our prayers, prayers that will be effective, prayers that will be pleasing to our God, must be grounded upon his promises and offered in a tone of repentance and humility. We want to consider together, first of all, the occasion for Daniel's prayer and the occasion for our prayer as believers. We want to look secondly at the substance. What is the substance or the content of our prayer to be so that our prayers will be pleasing to God. And then finally, we are not alone in our pursuit of proper prayer. We have a helper. We have a mediator in prayer. The occasion for prayer, first of all. Secondly, the substance of prayer. And finally, looking at our mediator in prayer. Well, we need to notice, first of all, as we look at the, before we look at the content or the substance of Daniel's prayer, we need to notice the occasion. What prompts Daniel's beautiful prayer here in chapter 9? It doesn't arise from nowhere. It comes from a certain occasion, a certain circumstance in the life of Daniel and in the life of the people of Israel. What is that occasion? What is that context that we need to think about. Well, we notice in verse 1 that Daniel's prayer takes place in the first year of Darius, a Mede. And in this first year of the reign of King Darius, Daniel has been doing his homework. He's looked back at the record books wherein the end of the destruction or the desolation of Jerusalem has been prophesied. He sees there in the record books what Jeremiah, God's prophet, prophesied and spoke about the desolations of Jerusalem. And as he looks at these books, Daniel would have remembered what the prophet spoke of in Jeremiah 25, that if the people of Judah continued to live contrary to the law of God, enemy nations would come and take them from their precious promised land. God, as you know, had given them a special land, a promised land of beauty, of bounty, a sacred and holy space for a sacred and holy people. But God prophesied through Jeremiah that if they continued to rebel, they would lose that land. And in fact, as Daniel presents this prayer before the Lord, that's exactly what had happened to Israel. She had, because of her rebellion, been taken into exile at the hands of the Babylonians. Israel was homesick to the greatest degree. They longed to return to the land that God had promised and given them. I know some of you are heading off to college, some of you for the very first time. Some of you are veterans. This is old hat and you're coming back for your third or fourth year, you figured everything out. But even if that's the case, I suppose that the first few weeks of this new semester, you might have a tinge of homesickness. You know, that mass-produced food in the cafeteria just can't match mom's cooking, can it? And your bed, your dorm room bed, just isn't quite as comfortable as your bed at home. Your room with all of your trinkets, all of your belongings that are familiar to you. You're a little homesick. Israel had homesickness to the greatest degree because they had been pulled away from the very land that God had promised to them because of their disobedience. But as Daniel looks at the records and goes a bit further, he notices that in Jeremiah 29, there is another glorious promise made that this desolation to Jerusalem, the exile of God's people would not last forever, but an enemy nation would come along to defeat their captors and restore them to their land, to deliver them from their enemy's hands. And this would take place after a duration of time specified as 70 years. Well, as Daniel begins his prayer, the Medes and the Persians had taken over Babylon. The very prophecy of Jeremiah had been fulfilled. And as Daniel looks at the desolation of the Babylonians, the overthrow of this enemy nation, he is elated, he is excited because he realizes that the Word of God recorded in the books has come true. And he's excited because restoration and deliverance is at hand for the people. And so he comes to the Lord humbly in sackcloth, in ashes. He's fasted as he prepares to come before the Lord in prayer. And he calls for God to demonstrate his forgiveness, his kindness and mercy to reinstate his people, his beloved bride Israel. What we need to notice here, as we look at the occasion for Daniel's prayer, is that his prayer is stimulated by what he knew, by what he read, by what was recorded in the Word of God. The promises of God for restoration and renewal prompted his prayer. His anticipation to receive God's promises prompted and came before his supplication. He asked in prayer for what God had already promised in the books. Well, in many ways, brothers and sisters, in the Lord, our occasion for prayer is not entirely different than that of Daniel. We, too, long for the promises of God to be fulfilled in our lives as well, to see the consummation of all the promises that God has made. We live in a world that is frightening, sometimes horrifying, And we long to be delivered. We long to take hold of that new promised heavenly land that God has made possible for us, is preparing for us even now. And like Daniel, his promises, those things recorded in the book, so to speak, prompt our prayer. As we consider his promises, as we see the promise to defeat evil in all of its forms, In the world, in ourselves, in the devil, we are encouraged to pray. Because we know, because it's been recorded for us, that He will vindicate us, that He will save us. That knowledge stimulates and calls us to pray. Our anticipation for the restoration promises of God, like Daniel, our anticipation prompts supplication. So that whatever the occasion, whether in a period of trial and difficulty and fear and anxiety, or in a time of great prosperity, God's promises come before. They precede our prayer and they prompt our prayer. So that when we pray in faith, we can do so, as the Catechism says, with hearty sighing. With unceasing begging. Because God already promises to give as we pray. John Calvin reminds us that when we really embrace the grace of God, the promises of God that He offers us, He meets us in prayer. He precedes us. He comes before us in prayer with all of His goodness. And as we grasp onto it by faith, then we bear witness to our expectation, our anticipation of what he has already promised. And so Calvin concludes, there is nothing better for us as believers than to ask in prayer for what he has already promised. That's the occasion for Daniel's prayer. He's grasping onto the promises of his God. But next we want to notice the substance or the content of Daniel's prayer. And we need to notice that as we look at verses 5 through 15, as we look through verses 5 to 15, or rather 3 to 4 first, we notice that his prayer is rooted in the covenant faithfulness of God. His prayer, his confidence, and the substance of his prayer is rooted in the covenant faithfulness of God. And in some ways, the format or the order that Daniel follows in the substance of his prayer coincides with the answer that the catechism gives in question and answer 117 to the question, how should we pray in order to be pleasing to God? There's really a correlation there that's quite interesting. So how does God want us to pray so that He will listen to us? What should be the substance, the content of our prayer to be pleasing to our Lord? Well, first of all, the Catechism gives this answer. We are to pray from the heart, from the heart to the one true God as He has revealed Himself in His Word, asking, bringing our supplications as He has commanded us. And we see Daniel doing this very thing. As he comes before the Lord in verses 3 to 4, he comes in worship. He comes with his whole self, praying from the heart, using biblical language to cry out to his God. He comes to God, first of all, in verse 4, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments. He refers to God, first of all, by His most intimate, His most personal covenant name. The name that He revealed only to His special covenant people, Israel. The Lord, Yahweh, the God who is always faithful to his covenant love. Daniel uses biblical language, the very name of God that he had revealed in his word and through his prophets to his people. He speaks to God in worship to begin his prayer in the way that God has commanded in his word. And he says, O God, You are both great and You are mighty, the sovereign ruler of all things, and You are also a God who is imminent and close to His people, who is forever faithful to His covenant, always faithful to His people. And Daniel comes in sackcloth and ashes and fasting. He comes humbly before the Lord, recognizing His utter need. Brothers and sisters in the Lord, we will never attribute to God the just honor and glory that He is worthy of unless we approach Him, first of all, in the humility that is fitting for children of God. We need to be careful, not careless in the way that we approach God. we need to use the very language of Scripture, the very name of God as He has revealed Himself, as He has commanded us to pray. We come not viewing our prayer as a mere outward performance, but we pray from the heart, with our entire selves. We call Him great. We magnify Him as awesome, as the One who has kept covenant with us as His people. It is impossible for us to obtain anything from God unless we appear in His sight like Daniel does here with a measure of trembling. A measure of fear and reverence for His holiness. We will not be pleasing to God in our prayer unless we come in this manner truly humbled by who He is and what He has done. Part of the reason Daniel comes in this manner to the Lord in prayer is because he is about to take ten verses or more to confess the people's sins. He remembers from the records. He remembers from his own experience the rebellion of God's people. And he comes now with the anticipation of restoration, with the anticipation of deliverance. And he comes realizing he can do nothing better than to now confess his sins. And our catechism calls us in the second place to acknowledge our sin and misery. Hiding, it says, nothing. Hiding nothing. Always humbling ourselves before his majestic presence. And that really is what Daniel goes on to do now in his prayer. In verses 5 to 15, he goes on to describe in very distinct and vivid terms the sin of God's people and gives us a very good model, a good pattern for how we are now to approach God in confession when we pray. He uses four distinct verbs to describe the various aspects of Israel's sin. He says, we, he includes himself, we have sinned. We've committed iniquity. We've acted wickedly. We've revolted. We've rebelled. We've turned from your commandments and your rules. And Daniel goes on to unpack, not leaving any sin behind, to unpack Israel's sin. You'll notice from God's Word here in verses 6 and in verse 10 and verse 11, There is a theme that runs through here as Daniel confesses the people's sins. And one of the major confessions of Daniel is that the people have not used their ears very well. That is, they haven't listened. Oh, they've heard the word of God through his prophets that came to the kings and to all the people, to the princes. They heard it, but they did not listen. They did not obey God's law, God's word had been given to them as a lamp, as a light to their path, that they could both obey God, flourish in the land that He had given them, and be a light to the nations around them. But they had snuffed out the light. They'd ignored the light. They'd pushed it away. And as a result, Daniel says in verse 8, an immense wave of guilt has come upon us. And your righteousness, he says to the Lord, your righteousness has put us to open shame. Literally, the people walked around with confused faces, totally disoriented by the guilt that was upon them, by the sins that led them into the wrong direction, away from the Lord, away from His perfect law and perfect will for their lives. And so Daniel goes into great detail about the guilt, The failure of the people to listen to God, he strips away any pride that they might have had in their reputable religious system. Not only that, not only is their perspective only one of shame and only one of guilt because of their sin, but in verses 11-15, Daniel reminds them that all Israel has not only turned away from God's voice, But the curse that God had stated in an oath in the law of Moses had come upon them. Daniel here does not try to make any excuse for the people. He does not try to play down their sin in any way. Rather, he says to the Lord, You are just. You are righteous. When you spoke in the law of Moses that there would be blessing for obedience but curse for disobedience, you were not lying. You were not playing around, O God. You were serious. Your words were serious. Our sins truly had consequences. So Daniel just goes into great detail to describe the justice and the righteousness of God to bring this calamity, a calamity that had never been seen before, upon Jerusalem. A calamity that the people justly deserved. But then in verse 9, there is this little nugget, this nugget of grace. In the midst of this confession, this clear and honest confession of sin, there is this nugget of grace, nugget of mercy and forgiveness, hope and comfort. Daniel has been describing the immense wave of shame that covers the people of God because of their sin. But he says in verse 9, but to the Lord belongs mercy and forgiveness. When we confess our sins, brothers and sisters in the Lord, in prayer, it may be very easy for us to become discouraged, to doubt the saving promises of God, to doubt that our sin, so great, so grievous to us, that our sin could ever be forgiven, that God could ever wash it away, we might doubt that, we might fear that hope has been lost when we repeatedly fall and fail to obey His commands. But in the midst of our confession, we can confess, we can use the model for prayer of Daniel here. Because in confessing the people's wickedness, he doesn't toss out the wonderful reality of the pardoning grace of God. He supports Himself. He comforts His hearers. He comforts the Israelites with this wonderful truth that God is merciful. That God is merciful. And as we confess our sins to God in great detail, leaving nothing out, we must also rest upon the very nature of God for He is by nature merciful and forgiving. We can never contemplate our sin and confess our sin in depth without contemplating the mercy and the forgiveness of God. But we need, in order to experience that comfort, in order to see our need for our Savior Jesus Christ to cleanse us from the sin that we confess in such detail, we need to go into detail. We are far too good at being vague in our confession of sin. We fall into the children's prayer. And forgive us our sins for Jesus' sake, Amen. Forgive us our sins for they are many. What are the many? We're called by God here to be clear. To leave nothing out, as the catechism says. To reveal to God, to confess to God all the ways in which we have fallen short of His holiness and His perfection. And there are some questions, very practical questions, that we can ask ourselves to come to that point where we can openly and honestly confess the sins that plague our lives and then to see the mercy and the forgiveness of God in response. We can ask ourselves, are we or do we humble ourselves before God in prayer as we should? Do we feel pain? Do we feel the pain when we are struck by the multitude of our sins? Have we realized that all is not well in the church and all is not well in us? Or do we have the mindset of, have fun, don't care? can we say, honestly and openly, not only that there is so little humility in the world, but that there is so little humility in me. In order for our confession to be pleasing to God, to be honoring to His ears, we need to combine repentance, sorrow, hatred for our sin. We need to combine that with a strong confidence and faith in the forgiveness and mercy of God for us. And combine those two things with a prayer of repentance and sorrow and honesty for our sin. If we don't have these elements in our confession, then our confession will only be a show. It will only be a formalized taking of God's name in vain. Indeed, as the catechism says, we are unworthy of the grace and the ear of God. But there's a third element to the substance of our prayer, to which Daniel turns next in his prayer. And that is this, this wonderful answer. How are we to pray? Finally, we rest on the unshakable foundation that even though we don't deserve it, God will certainly listen to our prayer for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord, just as He's promised in His Word. And that is where Daniel turns in his prayer. His occasion for prayer is a confident trust in the promises of God that prompt his prayer. He's come before the Lord to confess in biblical terms as God has commanded. He's come to confess the people's sins in all sorts of specificity. He's been very specific as to how the people have transgressed God's law. And now finally, he comes to plea for mercy, to rest his plea on the grace and the mercy of God. But it's very interesting the way that he prays for God's mercy. The way that he prays for deliverance for Israel from exile is very unique, and we need to take notice. In verses 16 to 19, he pleads for God's mercy. But already, in verse 15, we see a transition in his prayer, in his thought. Because he says, after confessing all of these sins, he says, And now, O God, a sure sign that there's a transition taking place. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for yourself. And then he goes on to ask for God's mercy. But his plea for mercy rests upon his desire to see the righteousness of God, the name of God, proclaimed among the nations. His concern, first and foremost, is not that the people would be vindicated, that they would be shown to be delivered, but that God's name, that His righteousness would be proclaimed in all the earth. He's concerned about God's reputation. What does God's reputation have to do with His people's deliverance? In fact, very, very much. What Daniel describes here in verses 16 to 19 is a desire that God's righteousness, that His name would be vindicated through the deliverance of His people. Because God had so bound Himself to His special covenant people that when they were cast into exile, the nations scoffed and laughed. Is this the powerful God of the universe who allows His people to fall into the hands of enemy nations? God either is impotent, the nations said, or He's a myth. He's no God at all. And like Moses in the wilderness who called for God to defend His honor before the Egyptians by sparing and helping His people, though they were rebellious, Daniel takes up this plea that God's name would be defended through the deliverance of His own people. He longs for the sanctuary in Jerusalem to be rebuilt so that God would be magnified, so that His righteousness would be proclaimed again in all of the earth, so that His righteousness would be vindicated once again. And so he says, according to your righteousness, O God, let your anger and your wrath turn away. Listen to the prayer of your servant and his pleas for mercy. For your own sake, O God, for your glory, let your face shine again upon your desolate people. Incline your ear, open your eyes to see your people's need and deliver them. His requests, His pleas, are not based upon the righteousness of the people. His requests, His pleas, are based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, the righteousness of God and the provision of redemption, the provision of restoration. And if someone were to ask us, on what basis are you heard and provided for by God's grace? On what basis do you receive mercy as God's people? Our answer must always be, as Christians, only on the mercy and the righteousness of God. The basis for our confidence in approaching God in prayer, that basis is God's own righteousness and mercy and goodness to us in Jesus Christ. Because our righteousness will no more contribute to our salvation and to our being heard by God than water mixes with fire. They do not go together. They will not go together. Our plea, the basis of our confidence, is God's mercy and grace. So that we can say, Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, pay attention. Act. Don't delay on behalf of us, your people, but for your sake, answer our prayer. That your name might be proclaimed, answer our prayer. Sometimes we feel as if God has delayed. We come before Him in prayer persistently, but the answer doesn't seem to come. But in fact, when we pray, and even when God does appear to delay, even that delay is for His sake. And when we pray for God's mercy, when we pray for His grace, for His ear to hear us in kindness, we pray for His sake, that His name would be glorified. But we are honest with ourselves if we realize that having these elements in the substance of our prayer, of adoration, of confession, of a plea for mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, We admit, we must admit and be honest, that we do not pray in this manner as consistently and faithfully as we should. If it were up to our faithfulness in prayer, we would never be heard. So what is our hope? What is our confidence as believers before the throne of God as we present our supplications to Him? The catechism reminds us that for the sake of Christ, finally, our mediator, For the sake of Christ, God will certainly hear our prayer, as He's promised in His Word. Christ Himself is our perfect mediator, intermediary, intercessor for us to bring us to God in prayer, to make our prayers feeble as they are, sometimes not having the right substance or content that they should. Christ takes our prayer and presents it before the Father in absolute perfection. And He can do this because He's the perfect Son of God. You know, Daniel here admits that he too is included in the sins of the people. He says, we have sinned. And so when Daniel comes before the Lord to pray, to make intercession for the people, he must make intercession not only for the people, but for himself as well. You may remember, boys and girls, that the priests of the Old Testament had to provide sacrifices and prayers, not only on behalf of the people, but for their own sins. But Christ offers our prayers to the Father. He comes as our intercessor before the Father, not to intercede for his own sins, for he has none. He comes to intercede for us as his people. Christ, Hebrews 7 tells us, the holy, innocent, unstained, exalted high priest had no need like those other high priests to offer sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the people. He was the sacrifice. And the prayers he offered were not for himself and for his own sins, but he offered himself perfectly for us in our place. Christ is the one, only true mediator. And by His intercession, the Father is delighted. He's pleased to call you into His presence to pray, to bring your petitions to Him. And because of our unworthiness, we might hesitate to come before Him with boldness and confidence to have our prayers answered and heard. But with Christ as our mediator, The throne of what might be dreadful glory is turned into the throne of grace. God cannot listen to our prayers. Our prayers cannot be pleasing to Him without the work of Christ bringing them to the Father in perfection. And so what we need to do, Calvin once said, is we need to wash our prayers in the blood of Jesus Christ. Trusting that through His righteousness, we can come before the Father. And through His perfection, He can and will bring our prayers to God beautifully. With just the right words. So that God will listen and will answer. Trusting God by faith as our mediator, as our advocate, we can approach God confidently, intimately as our Heavenly Father. to bring our requests in a manner that is truly pleasing to Him. Dear congregation, do you believe that for the sake of Jesus Christ, God treats you as you come into His presence to pray, treats you as His own Son and accepts you as His own Son? Do you depend on Him for everything that you need? Do you come before Him in prayer in utter dependence, confessing that He is your all in all and He provides all that you need for body and soul. The whole of your lives, your families, even your enemies, the world, the church, the kingdom of God, all of these concerns can be brought to God through Jesus Christ, your Lord. Pray by the mouth of Christ, with Christ as your mediator, with Christ as the one who takes your words. to present them before His throne in perfection. It is He who gives you entrance into God's presence. It is He who secures for you God's favor. It is He who takes your feeble words and makes them acceptable in His sight. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come before You in prayer are bringing no righteousness of our own. For it could not be, it could not be that You would hear us upon the basis of our righteousness. For we have none. But we look to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, our perfect mediator, who takes our feeble words, our supplications, our needs, needs that You already are very aware of before we bring them before You in prayer. It takes all of these things and presents them before your throne in perfection. You've given us a model, a pattern for prayer. May you grant us by your Spirit the strength to pray in such a way, to honor you, to please you. But when we fail, when our prayers are not what they ought to be, when our hearts are not in our prayers as they ought to be, take them. Take our prayers. May they be washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, cleansed, prepared, and presented to You in a manner in which You will be pleased. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Mediator, before Your throne, who will always take our needs and present them before You as You desire. Amen.